Kids caught with guns at Cleveland

Saturday

Oct 27, 2012 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - The problem of guns on Stockton Unified campuses arose Friday for the second time in less than three weeks when district police officers discovered two pellet guns that had been brought by eighth-grade boys to Cleveland Elementary.

Roger Phillips

STOCKTON - The problem of guns on Stockton Unified campuses arose Friday for the second time in less than three weeks when district police officers discovered two pellet guns that had been brought by eighth-grade boys to Cleveland Elementary.

Police Chief Jim West said the pellet guns were discovered as the result of tips from students at Cleveland, which was locked down for 45 minutes Friday morning.

One of the weapons was in a boy's backpack, and the second was found after students said they had seen a boy toss it over a fence and into the backyard of a neighboring home.

West said officers were interviewing both boys to try to learn why they brought the pellet guns to school. They face possible punishment from Stockton Unified and the criminal justice system.

The incident came 18 days after two boys were arrested when one of them fired a .22-caliber handgun into the floor of a crowded seventh-grade classroom at Van Buren Elementary. No one was injured in the Oct. 8 shooting.

About 9 a.m. Friday at Cleveland, students alerted the front office that they had heard eighth-grade classmates talking about having brought weapons to school, West said.

"Those kids did the exact right thing, which is tell staff," he said.

District police were quickly notified and the school was locked down. Searches were conducted in multiple classrooms, and the first gun was discovered in a backpack, West said.

Later in the morning, students reported they had seen a boy toss a pellet gun over a fence. West said officers quickly found that weapon in the backyard of a home.

"Most of the time (pellet guns) are not going to give somebody more than a welt," West said. "But every year somewhere in this country someone is killed by that type of gun. Some are quite powerful."

In 1989, five children were killed and 31 people were injured at Cleveland Elementary by a gunman who walked onto the midtown Stockton campus.